Piano updates
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So you may remember that I’m planning to play in a concert at the end of this month. Since I haven’t really done much public playing since the pandemic, my teacher and I thought it might be a good idea for me to play in the recital at the piano school where I take lessons. At the concert, I’ll play three pieces but in the recital, I’ll only play one piece, so I picked the one that gives me the most trouble.
The recital is tomorrow.
It seemed like a good idea when I signed up, but now, I’m not so sure.
I’m pretty sure I’ll be the only adult. The school has enough students that they spread the recital(s) out over two weekends, one on a Saturday with three time slots, and one (tmrw) on a Sunday with three time slots. I believe there can be up to 15 performers in each time slot. Beyond that I have almost zero information. My teacher said they generally order the performances by the difficulty of the piece, so I’ll probably be near the end but not last. I hope, if nothing else, that the person who plays after me is maybe a tall HS student or something
Anyway, wish me luck.
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Good luck! This will be fun!
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Thanks!
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Have fun!
When the world wearies and society ceases to satisfy, there is always the garden - Minnie Aumônier
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Break a leg!
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Good luck, SK! It will be fun.
I used to play in my kid’s piano recitals too, as the only adult student. But not the most advanced student, by far.
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Have you posted a link here to the three pieces you intend to play yet?
Big Al
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@Big_Al I'm not sure... maybe? Oh, yeah, somewhere, but I'll post here.
Tomorrow I'm playing September Song by Alexis Ffrench. This is a practice recording from a week or two ago. There's a 10-15 second blank at the beginning (sorry, I didn't edit it out.) Also, fyi the recording quality sounds terrible on my PC speakers, but pretty good on my iPhone (how I recorded it) and on the EarPods headphones.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PNuT2BW2nCeLP5CxF-fe8bYZoQuNTwmB/view
It's about 4 and half minutes long.
Hopefully I'll play it better tomorrow.
Here are the other two pieces:
Moment by Alexis Ffrench
Link to videoReminiscence by Takashi Kako (this link is cued so it should start at 1:40, which is where this piece starts)
Link to video
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@ShiroKuro
Thanks. It sounded good on my laptop speakers. I'll listen again with a Bluetooth speaker to see how much difference that makes. I smiled at the picture of the C2 from the piano's plate that accompanies the music.Big Al
Money seems to buy the most happiness when you give it away.
Why does everything have to be so complicated, all in the name of convenience. -ShiroKuro
A lifetime of experience will change a person. If it doesn't, then you're already dead inside. -MarkJ
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Thanks!
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Well I played in my recital today. Whew.
AS I think I wrote above (100 times
) this was my first recital since the pandemic. And it was a kids recital. I played 4th from last (out of about 20 people).Sitting through all those performances was a little rough. I snuck out midway through to go to the ladies room!
I had asked Mr SK to record, so I just got done listening to it... I'm really glad I did that. I never used to do that, but actually, having the recording is useful as a pedagogical tool, and it also tames my negative thoughts and memories of how I think I played by showing me how I actually played. And it was definitely not as bad as I had remembered. Which is nice, but again, more to the point, this recording is now a learning tool for me.
Anyway! Here's the recital report.
When it was my turn, I got up, set up my foot pedal, put a folded up towel on the non-adjustable bench, got settled....
And started to play. It started out really lovely. The piano sounded great on the recording, my tempo was nice, the musicality came through.... There's one transition where there's a bit of build up and drama, and then when it moves into the next section, it gets very quiet. I nailed that. Listening to the recording, it sounded much better than I realized at the time. Really lovely.
But at about page 3, I realized that I had been holding my breath, and if I didn't start breathing, I was going to fall off the bench. I also noticed that my hands were shaky.
It went downhill from there.
I got stuck in a few spots, I had to go back and replay something (the one thing I wanted not to do!) and near the end, I got totally lost and just skipped ahead to end it. Some of those things wouldn't be noticed if you didn't know the piece, but some of them were very noticeable.
I had zero control of my brain for the last half. I wasn't doing anything of the things I've practiced doing to stay in the music. I felt very much like I was rolling down a hill and couldn't stop.
Considering that, I pulled off the ending nicely and was able to not make a total fool of myself.
But this is not how I want to play. And I don't think it would be appropriate to give a performance like this at the concert I'm scheduled to play in at the end of the month....
I do think I'll do better in that situation, because I'll be playing three pieces, and can start with the easy one (that's what I always used to do, and it helps get the jitters out during the first piece). Also, I get to go first, so that will help.
Also, I think just having had this experience, after such a long break, will make performing much easier the next time.
But I need to work on controlling my brain, and I'm not sure how to do that.
The shakes you get in an actual performance situation are almost impossible to replicate, so it's hard to practice "playing through the shakes" or, practice "thinking through the shakes."
I have about 2.5 weeks until the concert. We'll see...
But in conclusion, I'm super glad I played in this recital!! I didn't feel silly or embarrassed playing sandwiched in between kids. And most important, I think I learned a lot, and just the chance to experience performing is so beneficial, so educational. So I feel pretty good about it.
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Sounds like it was a good experience over all. I’m glad! And I think listening to your recording after letting it go for a few days will also change your perspective on it. I know my recordings from Sonata piano camp were much better when my super-critical over-practiced brain wasn’t right on top of it.
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@AdagioM said in Piano updates:
Sounds like it was a good experience over all. I’m glad!
Thank you!
And I think listening to your recording after letting it go for a few days will also change your perspective on it.
Good advice!
I have a lesson on Wednesday, so I’m planning to listen to it with my teacher.
As an aside, the sound quality of the recording on my iPhone was really good! When I make practice recordings, I just put the phone on the side of the music desk (i.e. right on top of the piano). But yesterday, Mr SK was in the audience and he recorded it from where he was sitting. This was in a church, and the area behind the stage was rounded and the seating area spread out in an arc in front of the stage. The ceiling was slanted, with the low point above the stage and then opening out as you move out into the room. I guess that makes it basically like a small concert hall. The sound captured by my phone was so much better than my practice recordings at home. Maybe that’s what people mean when they say record the room?
The next time I record at home, maybe I should try putting my phone out in the living room. After all, my tuner raved about how nice it sounds and the benefit of my vaulted ceiling.
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Yeah, it is funny how we need to have our brain in a particular place when we play in public - and the brain doesn't always listen. We overfocus on something we don't need to focus on - and blam, we're in trouble. I remember Arthur Rubinstein talking about playing in public as a student. He got lost at one point - and made up a bit of music to fill in - and then finished. He expected his teacher to criticize him. Instead, his teacher smiled and said something like, " that was wonderful, I don't know that I could have done that better myself." His teacher understood that memory slips are part of playing - and getting past them is part of performing. I also remember attending a recital by a famous pianist. He was performing something I was planning to work on. I had the score in front of me as he was playing. After the concert, I went back stage - and he saw that I had the music. He was sure I must have noticed that he slipped up on something - but I didn't notice anything out of place - just assumed it was as it was meant to be.
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@kluurs said in Piano updates:
He got lost at one point - and made up a bit of music to fill in - and then finished.
His teacher understood that memory slips are part of playing - and getting past them is part of performing.
Re these two comments in particular…
At some point before this recital, I asked my teacher if he thought this piece was too hard for me or above my level, and he said no, definitely not. And by one measure, he’s probably right. But by this measure, what you’re talking about here, it might be.
One thing I always try to practice is playing through, not just playing through memory slips but also playing through little mistakes etc. Or if you “fall out” of the music, having a way to easily get yourself back in. With a lot pieces that I play, I am pretty good at that, fairly confident even. If I miss a note in one hand or get lost, a lot of the time, I am able to cover it or “play through” to such an extent that the listener won’t even notice.
With this piece, not so much. It’s like I don’t have the technical reserves needed to get me past the trouble spots with this piece. But I do have sufficient technical reserves with other pieces that I play.
So I’ve been thinking that, by this measure, the piece I played at the recital is in fact, a little bit too hard for me.
That’s ok, and I still plan to play it at the concert at the end of this month. But thinking about it that way has changed how I’m practicing it in my last three practice sessions since recital.
I have another lesson this evening, one of only two before the concert. So I’ll be talking with my teacher about all of this and we’ll see what he thinks.
I’ve also been thinking about what a rare gift it is as an adult hobby pianist to be able to give a public performance of a piece and then play the same piece again not even three weeks later at a different public performance. And to have a teacher to work with me on it throughout.
In all the years I’ve been playing, I've never done something like this. Maybe I’ve played at a piano party and then played the same piece again or at a later party, but it’s been months apart, or I played it for someone at my house and then at a piano party… And the several years leading up to the pandemic, when I was attending piano parties much more regularly, I didn’t have a teacher. I don’t quite know how to explain it but this feels different. And feels like a learning opportunity that would be impossible to replicate without these performance opportunities.
It’s neat.
Oh, and on Friday I’m scheduled to practice with my new cellist friend again, we’re working on two pieces that we plan to perform together.
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You are my hero. My mind leaves the room whenever I touch a musical instrument in the company of other people.
“I’m at an age when remembering something right away is as good as an orgasm.”—Gloria Steinem to Julia Louis-Dreyfus on Wiser Than Me
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@CHAS said in Piano updates:
You are my hero.
Aww thank you! What a kind thing to say!
My mind leaves the room whenever I touch a musical instrument in the company of other people.
Yeah me too though!
